RIDB-1c-2008-05 Retained Interior Die Break

Description

Fifth documented retained interior die break on a 2008 Philadelphia Mint Lincoln Memorial Cent, this variety records a die fracture that occurred within the interior design area rather than at the rim — a fundamentally different failure mode than the rim cuds and retained cuds that constitute the majority of documented die breaks. Interior die breaks form when a crack propagates through the die face in the field or design area away from the rim, and when the broken section remains attached rather than separating, the result is a retained interior die break: the struck coin shows a raised, irregular area within the design where the fractured die section sits slightly displaced from its original position. Cataloged by Cuds on Coins with no external cross-references as of January 21, 2019, RIDB-1c-2008-05 represents the fifth such interior fracture documented for the 2008 Philadelphia cent — the final year of Frank Gasparro's Lincoln Memorial reverse design, which was replaced by four rotating bicentennial designs in 2009. The 2008-P Memorial Cent thus holds the distinction of being a terminal-design issue, and die varieties from this last production year document the final chapter of a reverse design that had been in continuous use since 1959. Interior die breaks are inherently less common than rim failures because the interior die face generally has more uniform stress distribution than the rim edge, and their documentation adds important data points to the study of die failure mechanics across different zones of the die surface.

Attribution History

• Discovered by Mike Durney
• Cross reference: none. 01/21/2019.
• Expert attribution by Cuds on Coins

External References